[IC] Tengoku no Owari CT, Chapter 2

[Empiricist]

Chapter 2 - Winners Use Drugs

 

Everyone

The behemoth streaks through the skies, black acrid smoke billowing from weeping wounds, a hail of ice screeching out from swivelling hill forts and battle-scarred trench lines. A double bastard mongrel, half winter wonderland, half demilitarized zone, with a build reminiscent of a whale and a bite reminiscent of a stratofortress. 

 

Through the deluge you can see the hole in its side, a great ulcerous wound ringed with necrotic earth and weeping with smoke and vapor. Blasted and burnt, poisoned and salted, that is your entry point.

 

You begin your approach. A shell detonates near you, tendrils of ice erupting from a crystal coffin, scything and piercing empty air in a fractal pattern, three-dimensional snowflake that begins its life as a bullet and ends it as a spray of shrapnel. It'd be more fearsome if it actually hit. Faster and faster you race further into the barrage. Ice races to meet you, but the behemoth's aim is not what it once was, besides, you've faced worse, no thanks to a certain crazed bitch. Closer and closer you approach, the torrent beginning to ebb and fade, you're too close for many of the cannons to hit you and those that are, well, many of them aren't functional anymore, about as blasted and broken as the lands around them if not more so.

 

The breach is a far cry from the faux festive veneer of the snowfields, little more than a barren smouldering land haphazardly littered with cruciform gravemarkers thatpulse with a strange and sinister energy. Little survived the initial breach, and what did had been stripped bare, looted by enterprising adventurers. 

 

Through this breach, festering in the depths of the shellship like a particularly boisterous infection is you destination, the main adventurer camp. Barren earth gives way to... well it's really just more barren earth, but like, way more colorful thanks to all the looted decorations sprucing up the place like a particularly colorful and focused festival. Portable camps and the like sprawl out from shops and quest hub pylons questionably dressed figures wandering about chatting, sulking, and getting embroiled in newer trashier variants of your classical love triangle.

 

Really, you should be thankful, these guys have saved you lot an awful lot of work. The defenses are compromised, the ship's damaged, and what's left to oppose you have sealed themselves in the four remaining bastions. That's where you come in by the way, what's behind those is best left to a Godslayer to handle. Or well, an Aramitama. Or some rando going through a mid-life crisis in full plate armor. Point is, the place is besieged from the inside and you lot are to crush what remains. The Aramitama at the heart of all this? The one whose head you're here to claim? They're the son of a bitch that made those exoskeletons. Hmph, saddled those dumbass assassins with death traps but spared no expense for his own shell. Typical.

 

Ain't the kinda behaviour that makes you many friends, and boy oh boy did they make the wrong enemy. Kimiko's pretty light on the details but well, she's the reason he's here now, stranded in the Aethertide, the realm of the lost, besieged by adventurers, and soon to be staring down the barrel of a gun or whatever the hell you people use. She was looking for someone to deal the finishing blow, how convenient he turned out to be the man you're after.

 

But first, meeting your contact. The jammer in charge of keeping the defenses locked down. You find him near the center of town leaning against one of his crosses busy fiddling away at his phone, one of 'em gacha games you think. Pretty hard to miss honestly, given that he's y'know, a giant snake with magical cybernetic doodle arms and a dapper suit. Takes him a while to notice you guys in turn though.

"Huh, wha- oh. It's you guys. How'd you like our humble abode? It's a bit messy I know, hope you don't mind haha."

 

Spoiler

Just a reminder that the Aethertide is a different realm from Earth, where the general population is Awakened and adventurers roam around doing animu adventurer things. English is the lingua franca here, and it's a pretty popular resort destination too.

 

[IntSys]

However dangerous it might've been, Marina brought her friend, Remi, with her to the trip. Apparently she had arranged a meeting with a supplier here of all places to get some of the more exotic materials extracted from the behemoth, but all that could've been an excuse to tag along with Marina as well. The two held hands together even in flight, showing how close the two were.

 

As soon as the two got to the breach, Remi called forth a pair of mannequins, materializing out of thin air. They took the appearance of... maids, straight out of a maid cafe. Remi, in her purple, flower-patterned overcoat, looked incredibly out of place in between the maids.

 

"I'll be going then! See you later, Marina!" Remi let go of Marina's hand and left with her "bodyguards" to meet her supplier. Marina waved her goodbye, before following the adults to see the contact.

 

The contact being a giant snake.

 

Marina reserved a safe distance between her and the contact, at which point she was more willing to talk with him. She gave the surroundings another glance. Lights dotted the camp as far as the eye could see, giving off the illusion of a festival. Or perhaps it felt more like Christmas? "Well, the lights are comfy." Marina offered a compliment and not much else, having decided to let the others handle the actual talk.

[Yours Truly]

Immanuel seemed right at home as he rocketed past enemy fire, and let out an unnecessarily large gout of flame from his boots as he touched down inside of the breach in what he assumed would be style. He took a couple of steps closer to the contact than Marina did, reasoning that his armor was tough enough that he would at least be able to get away in time, he had a friendly and slightly joking tone to his voice when he said, "Oh don't worry, we don't mind, we're here to help with the clean up after all." He extended a hand out to offer a handshake before he said, "Challenger One, it's a pleasure to meet you Mr. Rege, how're the adventurers faring? Has anyone else made a pass at this dungeon's 'raid boss' yet? Any other areas that no one has managed to explore?."

[Empiricist]

"Thanks! We looted them, it was awfully dreary in here before!"

He spins around with a flourish to face Immanuel and shake his hand. His grasp is floppy and doodly, like a doodly stickperson arm.

"Righty ho! Business! It's a slow day most days here, we've breached most of the ship, but there are pockets of resistance still at play. We've had some people try venturing in, but they're more trouble than they're worth. You'll want to assault them first to lower the barrier on the bridge."

[Yours Truly]

Mr. Rege would find Immanuel's own handshake to be firm, but a bit brief, as the man slowly released his gauntleted grasp to unleash another barrage of questions with, "Ah, do you know what 'they' are? Any information the adventurers have gathered when attacking the 'raid boss' would help after all, and, I hope you won't find this next question to be offensive, but do we have anything to worry about from the adventurers? Are any of them opposed to the idea of anyone else 'cleared the dungeon' so to speak? Since it seems like there are still quite a lot of adventurers here." 

[Empiricist]

Matteo fidgets "About that... we, haven't reached the raid bosses yet - there's heavy fortifications at their entrances. But not to worry, I'm sure you won't have any problems blasting through! We'll try and follow after that, so no need to worry about anyone getting too jealous." 

 

Reaching into his jacket he produces a couple photos, handing them over for your perusal. There's really three locations you see in there - the lantern-lit gates of an enormous chinese palace sporting dancing tigers and eastern dragons, a sprawling night-bound cathedral city populated with figures that look somewhere between "cardinal" and "grieving widows", and uh, a japanese high school? Like it's really big and the front gates look pretty sturdy with absurdly forgettable students patrolling, but like, it's a fucking high school. 

 

[Yours Truly]

Immanuel nods in response, slowly scanning through the provided pictures as he says, "Alright then, thank you for your help so far, but is there anything else you can tell us about the fortifications itsel-is that a high school?," he took a closer look at that particular one, walking up to Mr. Rege and showing it to him and the rest of the group while asking, "Are you sure that you took this from inside of the ship? Because this looks a bit...off."

[Empiricist]

"Nope, pretty sure that was from inside the ship. The minions stationed there are well-equipped with a variety of debilitating weaponry and it quickly became the least favourite of the three fortifications. The castle seems to rely on more conventional tactics involving a mixture of mobility, armor, and firepower, and the cathedral is crawling with summoners!"

[Yours Truly]

Immanuel moves one of his hands below his chin, adopting a traditional 'thinking' pose before he said, "Well then, do we have to attack all three fortifications to get to this ship's creator? Because if we don't then I've certainly got some ideas on which one I'd like to attack first, depending on what equipment the residents of the castle utilizes we might be able to assault them easily enough, not like this would be the first time we've fought against empowered conventional armed forces, but personally? I think I'd prefer to head to the cathedral myself, I've taken some time to work on my spell list a bit, and I'm quite confident in my ability to shut down or corrupt summoning spells now. What do you guys think?"
 

[Empiricist]

"All three must fall, but Kimiko's sending another squad over to help out." 

[IntSys]

"Whaaat, is a bunch of JKs too scary for our CHALLENGER ONE?" Marina stressed the moniker again as she tilted her head slightly to the left. "I'm not sure how many of those American shooter games you've played, but I for one would prefer to be in an environment I'm familiar with. 'Debilitating Weaponry' you said? That could be anything, even the kind of pepper spray you can buy at 100-yen stores. So, I say we go to that high school."

[Ragnarok97071]

The bishounen bombshell grins with distractingly perfect and only slightly too-sharp teeth and, in an elegant, offhanded motion, brushes a flyaway strand of hair from... his? Her? it's hard to tell to be honest. Their. We'll go with their.

 

Away from their face, the dark strand floating majestically back for a moment before drooping down once more, hanging rakishly over their brow.

 

"Our foes herd together like the prey they are, do they not? It does not matter which we assault, after all, whether by blade, or spell, or slow digestion over the course of eons, the destination does not change: They die at the end."

 

That was more words than they'd said the entire time before they'd gotten ahold of that card to make a template out of. Well, at least they pretend to be human now, up until that card needs to go somewhere else.

[Yours Truly]

On 5/25/2019 at 5:44 PM, IntSys said:

"Whaaat, is a bunch of JKs too scary for our CHALLENGER ONE?" Marina stressed the moniker again as she tilted her head slightly to the left. "I'm not sure how many of those American shooter games you've played, but I for one would prefer to be in an environment I'm familiar with. 'Debilitating Weaponry' you said? That could be anything, even the kind of pepper spray you can buy at 100-yen stores. So, I say we go to that high school."

"I'm working off of the assumption that entire hordes of greedy adventurers weren't stopped completely by panty shots and pepper spray Marina, but you do have a point, what kind of debilitating weaponry do they actually use?," Immanuel calmly stated before he slowly segued into, "Also CHALLENGER ONE has never shot up a school before, neither in the virtual world or the real one."

[StormLord]

Spoiler

Posting to vote for the cathedral, been swamped this week and I'm too exhausted to write something long and drawn out.

 

[Chevaleresse]

Game was decreed dead on Discord, so I'm closing this.